Blueberry Steel Cut Oatmeal Scones

Blueberry Steel Cut Oatmeal Scones

On a cold winter morning, nothing tastes better than a hot bowl of creamy oatmeal.  Usually I can eat an enormously large bowl of it all by myself and so can most of my immediate family, but I still often make too much and have a bowl or two left over.  Since left over oatmeal is one of my least favorite foods (reminds me of paste), and I absolutely hate to waste food, I often bake the oatmeal into whatever it is I am making that day.  

The recipe this is based on was actually on the side of a giant box of steel cut oats my father in law bought by accident. He thought he was buying some sort of granola cereal when in fact he had bought a bulk box of the slowest cooking (and healthiest) oatmeal.  So we cooked up a large pot of it, ate it for breakfast and used the left overs to make these amazingly delicious blueberry scones.  They were easy to whip together and can be frozen for weeks in order to provide the nutrition of steel cut oats in an on the go breakfast treat.

Maple Cornmeal Cookies

Maple Cornmeal Cookies

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!  I have been busy baking and cooking these last few days while on vacation in Canada and will certainly be posting Thanksgiving dinner recipes that I am working on in the days to follow, but here is an idea for a perfect Thanksgiving day breakfast.  A cross between a corn muffin and a cookie, this treat is hearty, chewy and not too sweet.  Pair it with some fresh fruit and a cup of coffee and get to work cooking up a turkey feast. Happy Hanukkah too!! 

Orange Cranberry Sauce with Chia

Orange Cranberry Sauce with Chia

This is a delicious and healthy twist on a traditional Thanksgiving dinner accompaniment.  I got the idea for this recipe simply by seeing some organic cranberries for sale in my local grocery store and being completely obsessed at the moment with chia seeds.  I bought the cranberries thinking I would bake them into muffins or bread or something, but during the drive home, I had an idea.  What if instead of extra sugar in a homemade cranberry sauce, you simply sweetened it with orange juice and a touch of honey and thickened it with "magical" chia seed?  I was planning on having some of my left over Canadian Thanksgiving Casserole for dinner the next night, so cranberry sauce would be a perfect addition and a great way to test out a new recipe for the upcoming American Thanksgiving.

As usual when coming up with a brand new idea, I decided to check the internet to see if anyone else had tried this before.  I assumed someone must have and I just wanted to see what other ingredients they used, the ratio of chia to cranberry to juice, etc. and then planned to make my own version based on what I found.  But I found nothing!  There was one mention of a recipe to be shared in the future and lots of cranberry sauce recipes, but nothing using chia seeds as the main thickening agent.  I was fairly certain that it would work since I had seen recipes using fruit and chia to make jams and jellies, so I decided to just wing it and hope for the best.  Once again, I was lucky (or just talented) because this is honestly one of the best cranberry sauces I have ever had (sorry mom!).  And what is even better is knowing what went into it and that besides a mere two tablespoons of honey, it is sweetened purely with fruit.  And it has chia in it which is of course amazingly good for you! Win win win.  :)